Essential XML Beyond Markup Don Box, Aaron Skonnard, John Lam

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) has been anointed as the universal duct tape for all software integration problems despite XML's relatively humble origins in the world of document management systems. Essential XML presents a software engineering-focused view of XML and investigates how XML can be used as a component integration technology much like COM or CORBA. Written for software developers, this book demonstrates how XML can be used as the glue between independently developed software components (or in the marketecture terminology du jour, how XML can act as the backplane for B2B e-commerce applications).

Readers acquire a better understanding of XML's inner workings and come to see how its platform, language, and vendor independence--along with its accessibility--make it an extraordinarily effective solution for software interoperation.

1. Beyond Markup (Infoset, XML 1.0 + Namespaces)
2. Programming XML (SAX, DOM)
3. Navigation (XPath, XBase, XInclude, XPointer)
4. XML Schemas (XSD)
5. Transforms (XSLT) [adapted for MSDNM article]
6. Beyond Interface-based Programming (SOAP concepts)

• A - The XML Information Set
• B - XML Productions
1. Sorted by production number
2. Sorted by name
3. Character tables
• C - Example Gallery
1. SAX/DOM Examples
2. XPath Expressions (builder requires MSXML3/IE5)
3. Programming XPath
4. XML Schema Examples
5. XSLT Examples
6. Programming XSLT

You can buy Essential XML from Amazon. Check out the other new works in the Developmentor Series from Addison Wesley.

See the author's personal site for additional samples and resources (linked from the author's name above).

The errata for Essential XML is listed here.